Swell shutter



B. G AUSTIN SWELL SHUTTER July 8, 1930.

Filed March 6, 1929 lin nfor" b. aids/in,

Patented July 8, 1930 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE BASIL G. AUSTIN, OF HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, ASSIGNOR TO THE AUSTIN ORGAN COMPANY, OF HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, A CORPORATION OF CONNECTICUT SWELL SHUTTER Application flledMarch 6,

The present invention relates to improvements in swell shutters for use in connection with pipe organs.

Heretofore, it hasbeen the general practice to make the swell shutters of wood, the shutters having bevelled edges adapted to close on each other and faced with felt or the like. Such an arrangement is open. to numerous objections, among which may be mentioned that wooden swellshutters warp or swell so that the fit between the shutters becomes more or less imperfect resulting in tone leakage and also the felt, being more or less porous, there is a certain loss of tone values. Wooden shutters, in order to obtain the necessary stability and sound proof qualities, must be of considerable thickness, and this is objectionable because their weight makes them hard to operateand their thickness obstructs a certain amount of tone even when the shutters are in open position. Also, wooden shutters having meeting bevelled edges are objectionable in that, when the shutters are brought to closed position, the meeting edges engage and result in noise and. a shock in the mechanism which operates them.

It is thegeneral aim of the present invention to provide an improved swell shutter wherein the above and other objections, incident to wooden swell shutters as heretofore constructed, are avoided.

More particularly, the aim of the invention is to provide an improved shutter which. will be substantially sound proof and which is light in weight so as to avoid inertia and momentum to the end the shutters may be easily and quickly operated.

Another object of the invention is to provide an improved shutter which will be closefitting with respect to its companion ones so that, when the shutters are in closed position, there will be little if any tone leakage. My improved shutters are so constructed that each shutter clears the next one by a minimum air gap, this being practical and possi-. ble owing to the fact that the shutter will not vary in width under humidity and other atmospheric changesas is the case with wood- .en shutters.

1929. Serial No. 344,825.

A further object of the invention is to provvide improved shutters for. swell boxes so constructed and arranged that the shutters will not engage one another, .thus eliminating objectionable noise when they are brought to closed position and also avoiding shock in the operatingmechanism.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a shutter of this type which is light in Weight, which has ahigh degree of sound stopping qualities, which is rigid and strong, which may be easily operated and with which a greater amount of tone exit area, when in open position, may be obtained.

Other objects will be in part obvious and in part pointed out more in detailhereinafter.

The invention accordingly consists in the features of construction, combination of elements and arrangement of parts which will be exemplified in the construction hereinafter set forth and the scope of the application of which will be indicated in the appended claims.

In the drawings, wherein I have shown for illustrative purposes one embodiment which the present invention may take:

Figure 1 is a longitudinal sectional-view showing the improved shutters in full lines in the closed position and in dotted lines in the open position; and

Fig. 2 is a plan view of the same.

Referring more particularly to the drawings, 5 and 6 designate plates, preferably of steel which are secured in spaced relation upon opposite sidesof a central block 7, of wood or other appropriate material, and upon opposite sides of the outer blocks or strips 8 and 9 of wood or the like. The block 7 is adapted to swing about the fulcrum or central pin or trunnions 10, ,as indicated in dotted and full lines in Fig.1. The plates 5 and 6 are secured to opposite outerfaces of the block 7 by any appropriate fastening means, for instance the screws 11. At each side of the block 7, the block surface is formed of relatively sloping walls-12 and 13 which come to an apex 14 substantially centrally of such side surfaces.

The plates 5 and 6 are of angular form,

the plates converging outwardly from the block 7, which is located only at the central, wider portions of the plates. The end blocks 8 and 9 are much narrower than the central block 7 and spaced therefrom, felt or other strips being placed between the ends of the plates and the blocks 8 and 9. Rivets or other fastenings 16 are employed to hold the plates against the felt strips 15 and to the blocks 8 and 9. The blocks are preferably formed with T-heads 17 the flanges or shoulders of which preferably overlap the ends of the felt strips 15 and the ends of the plates 5 and 6.

The heads 17 are preferably beveled or cut away at the corners 18 thereof and are formed with central grooves 19. The plates 5 and 6, where they engage the felt strips 15, are preferably parallel to one another and to the sides of the blocks 8 and 9, bends 20 being made in the plates between such parallel end parts and the convergent side walls of the plates.

The plates 5 and 6 are relatively thin and light. Owing to these steel plates, there will be no swelling or shrinking due to moisture content of the atmosphere. Consequently, the length of the shutter, that is from the outer face of the block 8 to the outer face of the block 9, will not contract and expand in response to moisture or humidity changes, which characterize the action of all-wood shutters. By the invention, the variable equation in a wood shutter is very materially reduced, if not entirely eliminated. T he wood blocks 8 and 9 will, of course, respond to humidity changes and, in consequence, they will swell and contract, but this variation will be counteracted and compensated for by a proportional swelling and contraction laterally in the central wood block 7. As this .wood block 7 continues to expand laterally, it will push the wider central portions of the plates 5 and 6 still further apart, thus drawing in toward the center 10 the ends of such plates which carry the outer smaller blocks or strips 8 and 9. In this way, the swelling of the outer strips or blocks will be taken up in the over-all length of the device.

The invention provides a shutter of light weight with a high degree of sound stopping quality, and its section or shape is such as to give a reater amount of tone exit area when in the open position. Consequently, to obtain the same opening area as with a shutter with parallel sides, the edges of which are thick, it is unnecessary to open the improved shutters so far.

Owing to the shape and arrangement of the parts, and particularly to the angular character of the steel plates, a very strong and rigid structure is obtained while, at the same time, the shutter is thicker at the center than at its edges.

At the shutter swings on the center pins 10, its heaviest part, namely the center, does not travel as far as its lighter outer edges; thus, stiffness is provided at the center; and the edges, being light, are more responsive even in moving the greater distance.

It is understood that, in the series of shutters, the central points of adjacent shutters are accurately spaced and the edge strips are trimmed on a special machine, bringing them to accurate dimensions relative to their center pins. This permits the air gap or clearance between adjacent shutters to be very small.

As many changes could be made in the above construction and many apparently widely different embodiments of this invention could be made without departing from the scope thereof, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawing shall be interpreted as iilustrative and not in a limiting sense.

It is also to be understood that the language used in the following claims is intended to cover all of the generic and specific features of the invention herein described and all statements of the scope of the invention which, as a matter of language, might be said to fall therebetween.

I claim as my invention:

1. An improved swell shutter comprising metallic side plates, a wooden center block secured to the intermediate portions of said plates, and wooden end blocks secured to the outer portions of the plates.

2. An improved swell shutter comprising a laterally expansible center block, substantially non-expansible plates affixed to opposite sides of said block, and longitudinally expansible end blocks held between the end portions of said plates.

3. An improved swell shutter having end members subject to longitudinal warping, an intermediate member subject to lateral warping with a proportional compensating drawing together and apart of the end members, and elements connecting said members.

4. An improved swell shutter having substantially nonexpansible side plates, members between said plates subject to local longitudinal warping, and a central member between said plates subject to lateral warping whereby to move the end members bodily together and apart to compensate for such local elongation and contraction of the end members and maintain the length of the shutter substantially constant.

5. An improved swell shutter comprising a pair of metal plates converging from their central portions towards their outer ends, and means for holding said plates in spaced relation.

6. An improved swell shutter comprising thin side plates, a wide center block secured between the plates, and narrow end blocks secured to the plates in spaced relation to the center block.

7. An improved swell shutter comprising a pair of angular metal plates converging towards their outer ends, a central pivoted block between and secured to said plates, and thinner blocks between and connected to the ends of said plates.

8. An improved swell shutter comprising a center block, plates secured thereto, end blocks secured to the plates, and sound insulating strips between the end blocks and the plates.

9. An improved swell shutter comprising a center block, plates secured thereto, end blocks secured to the plates, sound insulating strips between the end blocks and the plates, and rivets extending through said plates, strips and end blocks.

10. A bank of swell shutters comprising individual shutters devoid of spacing members therebetween, the adjacent edges of adjacent shutters being slightly spaced when the shutters are in closed position and clearing one another.

11. A bank of swell shutters comprising individual shutters devoid of spacing members therebetween, the ends of adjacent shutters, when the latter are in closed position, being sli htly spaced apart so as to just clear one anot er, and the ends of said shutters having longitudinally extending grooves.

12. A bank of swell shutters comprising individual shutters devoid of spacing members therebetween, the adjacent edges of adjacent shutters being slightly spaced when the shutters are in closed position and clearing one another, each of said shutters comprising a pair of metallic side plates and spacing members therebetween arranged to compensate for variations due to atmospheric changes.

BASIL G. AUSTIN. 

